


Tailgating

by T Verano (t_verano)



Series: December, This Time Around [17]
Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: 2015 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "solstice", M/M, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19213192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: December with the guys a couple of years post-TSbyBS.Blair goes to a Winter Solstice bash; Jim gets a debrief.





	Tailgating

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2015 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "solstice"

"You sure you're not soused." Jim's voice was amused, and Blair rolled his eyes. Not that Jim could see that over the phone, of course.

" _One_ cup of mulled wine, otherwise I stuck to the hot spiced cider. Which was excellent."

"Uh-huh." The amusement in Jim's voice was still going strong. "So, a party in a parking lot in December?"

"It was the best place nearby to watch the sun set," Blair said, nearly rolling his eyes again, "and anyway, the solstice is traditionally a time to honor nature, and being outside is usually a good place to start with that, so yeah."

"I'm not sure I'd call milling around in a parking lot 'honoring nature,' Chief. Sounds to me like you had a good old-fashioned tailgate party with lots of asphalt and boomboxes, more like a college football pre-game bash than some sort of mystical, millennia-old celebration of the sun's rebirth, or whatever."

"Tomayto, tomahto, man," Blair said and earned a laugh. "But seriously, Jeff's sister showed up with her Celtic music group in tow, so the boomboxes only came out when the band was taking a break. For the rest of it — yes, there was asphalt, but there are trees scattered throughout the parking lot and we hung mistletoe from their branches, and Yvonne got a permit so we had a Yule log. So it was actually pretty appropriate; a mix of traditional and non-traditional celebrations, old and new. Which is kind of the whole ethos of solstice, the old — the shortening days and 'going away' of the sun — turning into the new: the birth of longer days, the renewal of the sun. The past celebrating the future, if you want to put it that way."

"With a tailgate party. And lots of mistletoe."

Blair laughed. Of course Jim would focus on the mistletoe. "Mistletoe for luck."

"Luck," Jim repeated dryly. "So how was your luck, Chief?"

Which basically meant, "You have a good time?" and "Wouldn't have minded being there with you, as long as it didn't get too weird and New Age-y." Not that long ago, though, Jim would've meant something entirely different by that question — "You find somebody you want to trade me in for?" and "I'm not enough for you" and "I don't trust you, I don't trust myself, I don't trust _us"_ — and the relief that they were pretty solidly past that now still sometimes almost took Blair out at the knees. 

He drew in a not quite shaky breath. "My luck was great, Jim," he said. "Scored some killer vegan nachos and chocolate cherry brownies, threw dried holly on the Yule log with a blessing for the old year and the new, had a good time with a bunch of really good people, watched the moon come up while the band played 'An Gaoth Aneas'…" He paused and closed his eyes. "And it's almost Christmas Eve." Christmas Eve, when he'd be back up at the cabin with Jim. "My luck's great."


End file.
